Episode 1 Hilary Devey's Women at the Top

This is Hilary Devey's empire - an international haulage network.

I built this business in the most male-dominated sector

you could ever imagine.

I didn't let being a woman stand in my way.

If I can do it, why can't every woman do it?

More than half of Britain's graduates are women.

Nearly half of Britain's workers are women.

But the vast majority of top jobs are held by men.

You are talking to potential investors into your business.

It was your job to make us aware. You would make my foot itch, mate.

As one of the nation's most prominent entrepreneurs,

Hilary Devey thinks she knows

what's stopping more women from climbing the career ladder.

There is no glass ceiling, I'm living proof of that.

If you want it, go out and fight for it.

Hilary's on a mission to test

whether her beliefs about women in business are correct.

She'll learn there's a growing body of evidence

to show that business performs better with women.

Women now are a very large part of the workforce.

Women actually have earned the right

to do what they want to do when they want to do it.

Jobs used to be about brawn

and now they're really in this country about brain,

and women's brains are under-utilised in the business world.

Employers who don't realise the power of women in the workforce,

I don't think they're going to survive.

Along the way, Hilary will be finding out

about the obstacles women face. Is recruitment biased in favour of men?

You're finding words like "engage," "execute."

To my mind, they might as well say they're looking for a bloke!

How much is the system stacked against women with families?

It's the whole childcare versus your wages, it just doesn't add up.

Or is it, as Hilary suspects, that very few aspire to a life like hers?

There are self-sacrifices to be made and I've little time for women

who won't make those self-sacrifices and then moan about it.

Hearing some home truths

about the prospects for women inside her own business

could make her see things in a new light.

Is Hilary Devey a fantastic, authentic, role model

leader for other women, or is she a queen bee,

who loves to keep power in a male-dominated environment?

Hilary's determined to find solutions

that will transform the lives of working women.

But first, she's going to have to find out

why there are still so few women at the top.

As a woman who built her own £100 million a year business empire,

Hilary Devey believes success comes down

to tough choices and hard graft.

It might be a little bit more difficult for a woman

than it is for a man, so she's got to work harder - fact.

I truly believe it's not up to the employers

to make it happen for women, it's down to the individual.

Are they the right person in the right job at the right time?

Hilary's going to be looking for solutions,

but first she needs to find out why so few women

are making it into key roles, and to investigate

the multitude of factors that stop them from rising through the ranks.

I am not interested in going on this journey

for the sake of political correctness.

What I want to ascertain is, are women good for business,

and can we prove that?

If I find anything that will make my own business

a better and more profitable working environment,

then I will most certainly be implementing it immediately.

PHONE RINGS

Good morning, Pall-Ex, Claire speaking.

Hilary's attempt to get to grips

with the problems women face in business will begin

at the company she founded 16 years ago.

Pall-Ex is an international logistics network

with its headquarters right in the middle of Britain

in Ellistown, Leicestershire.

Oh, there's all sorts in here - baths, logs, trees,

pallets of food, pallets of dog food, stone, brick.

Anything that's on a pallet, we will move it.

Hilary's going to start by taking soundings

from some of the rising stars from her management team.

Hello, Holly. Hello, Rohini.

She wants to present them with a stark dilemma which she suspects

is at the heart of women's failure to succeed in business.

I want you to join a debate with me.

If I was to say to you,

you could have either a place on a board at a business,

would you choose that against your balance of having a child

and bringing your child up till they went to school?

-No, I wouldn't.

-You would choose...

I would, well, I think it depends on your situation,

but me, personally, I would have a family.

I think if the salaries for women were equal to that of men,

so if I knew like my wife, Deb, is she went out to work

and was earning an equivalent salary, or had the opportunity

to do that in a fairly short space of time,

me staying at home, yeah, great. I'd do that.

So you'd resign from your board position and become a house husband?

Yeah, yeah, cos I spend a lot of time working.

I don't spend much time with bringing Kera up.

If you have the choice of saying work, carry on in your career,

and your husband then stays at home, looks after the children,

-would that happen?

-If I earned more money,

then I wouldn't mind my husband staying at home.

What would be more important to you, then? Your career or your home life?

-I would say career.

-Your career?

I would balance it out where I would still try

and fit my children in, but definitely career.

But there are very few women like you. There are very few.

I think you said that you'd choose...

I couldn't give up a family for a career.

Of all the three there, the one that surprised me the most was Holly.

I think what I'd really like to see is for both employers and females

to have the best of both worlds.

I'm not going to keep females out of my workplace

simply because they want to develop the next generation of children.

That's wrong!

In fact, record numbers of women are working mothers.

More than two thirds of mums work nowadays,

compared to less than a quarter 40 years ago.

But women haven't swept into senior roles at the same rate.

Hilary's heard conflicting opinions from her own team,

now it's time for her to see the scale of the problem.

Everything starts so promisingly for young women in education,

where they outshine boys at school

and outnumber young men at university.

-Hi, Ceri.

-Hi, Hilary, how are you?

Ceri Goddard is a leading campaigner for equality.

Here at University College London, she's going to show Hilary

what happens to promising graduates once they're out in the workplace.

She's assembled a group of young men and women

to represent the male and female managers

who work in Britain's biggest businesses.

At the base of the management pyramid

are two rows of middle managers.

Above them are senior managers.

Up at the top of the pyramid are the highfliers

who make it into jobs as executives and boardroom bosses.

With men in blue and women in red, this is how the pyramid would look

if men and women were rising through the ranks at equal rates at every level.

This pyramid shows if we had full equality in our business leaders.

You can see 50% men, 50% women,

but of course the reality is very different.

Middle managers, can you go!

The reality is that men hold 70% of middle management jobs

in Britain's top companies. Even at this level,

women are failing to be promoted

into these roles at the same rate as men.

Why do you think so many females are leaving

when they get into middle management positions?

There's a number of factors contributing to that.

Women still do the vast majority of child care in this country.

Also, often, looking after older relatives and others.

We have a culture of long working hours

and even though we've had this big move of women into the workforce,

it hasn't really changed to reflect that fact.

But when you get to senior management level

and board and executive, the picture is far, far worse.

OK, can senior managers please leave!

The proportion of women dwindles still further at senior management,

executive and board level.

Here, in the roles that wield real power,

83% of jobs are filled by men.

You've got particular issues with boards and senior executives.

Here you have a very small pool of mostly men,

who then appoint what they know,

which is other men and the old boys' network is alive and kicking.

Well, there's not too many females left in this pyramid, is there?

No, it's really quite shocking.

Do you think it's anything to do with women

not being as vociferous as they could be?

Are we just standing back as females and letting it happen?

Why should women have to fight harder than men?

You should have to fight to get to the top but you shouldn't have

-additional barriers because you're a woman.

-No, you shouldn't,

but the fact is, you're not going to change genetics overnight, are you?

And women are modelled to give birth are modelled to be nurturers.

You're not going to change the biological clock, are you?

-So what we've got to do...

-I don't think you need

to change women's biology to make our workplaces fair.

Why don't we change the workplace to reflect the fact

that half of the people now working in them are women.

From your perspective, campaigning for women, I think it's better

to acknowledge that women need to stand up, need to be counted,

need to fight. No, you shouldn't have to,

but unfortunately you're going to have to.

I think despite business taking strides and addressing this,

-we're just not moving fast enough in this country.

-No we're not.

-Waste of talent.

-It's a shocking waste of talent.

It's bad for the women and bad for our economy.

It's bad for business.

The loss of so much talent from the workplace has got Hilary fired up.

She wants to know what the students think,

now they've got the measure of women's career prospects.

How do you feel about what you've just seen?

Um, yeah, I suppose it's a bit of a shock and a bit demoralising.

So, you was kind of merrily going on, taking your degree

in the hope that one day, you'll end up on top in a boardroom.

Absolutely. I think that's what most girls our age think now.

What about you, Isabelle?

Yeah, I just thought it was a real shock.

I thought they would have been problems from years and years ago,

when it was more the traditional role

of the man as a breadwinner and the woman bringing up the children.

I'm hoping that one of you girls is going to say,

"I don't care, I'm still going to get there,

"and I'm prepared to fight for it."

Definitely, I will remember this moment.

Well done. Shake my hand, well done. What about you?

Ever mindful of the bottom line, Hilary is struck by the inefficiency

of a system that largely promotes from within one half of its intake.

We're losing a shocking amount of sheer talent

from the business sector.

With Britain spending £21 billion a year on recruitment,

it's also a serious drain on resources.

The costs of recruitment and training to any business is phenomenal,

so the more we can retain our skill set,

the more a business can retain its talent,

the more that business will prosper and flourish.

Now Hilary wants to learn how business would benefit

if the female brain drain could be stopped.

Sir Roger Carr heads the Confederation of British Industry.

-Sir Roger, what a pleasure.

-Yeah, I'm delighted to meet you.

Now, I've seen firsthand just how much talent is being lost

as women disappear from the workplace.

What does this mean to UK PLC?

I think that the loss of that talent pool

is financially damaging for business

and it's also damaging for the health of an organisation.

The common sense facts are that businesses comprise customers

who are male and female, employees who are male and female,

and normally shareholders, male and female.

And therefore to have a company that is run

exclusively by one gender or the other,

you're simply not running the business in an appropriate manner.

What do you think women bring to the table?

They bring a different life experience

and therefore they change the nature of the debate.

It becomes more positive, more constructive

and ultimately leads to better decision making.

And for the United Kingdom,

better business with a better competitive edge

is utterly critical to our growth and that's important to all of us.

In the past, arguments in favour of improving women's working lives

were based on equal opportunities.

Campaigners in the 1970s fought for equal pay

and against sex discrimination in recruitment and promotions.

But now the case for women is backed up by evidence which shows

that companies with a mix of men and women in leadership positions

make better decisions and are better run.

Research comparing the financial results of American companies

with the most women on their boards to those with the fewest

indicates that more mixed leadership tends to deliver higher sales,

and higher returns on equity and invested capital.

Businesses at all levels work better with a gender mix

and most businesses see that.

They've already understood that this is not something to aspire to.

It is something they need to grip very quickly

because in today's world,

-you want all the competitive edge you can get.

-Absolutely.

-And women bring that.

Now Hilary's seen how few women are rising through the ranks

and she's heard how urgently

business needs more women at the top.

Next, she's going to visit a company where bosses have transformed

the prospects of their employees.

They decided to be very proactive

in a way of retaining their female talent

and helping them up the corporate ladder,

so I'm on my way to see how they went about achieving this.

The company was Procter & Gamble,

the world's biggest consumer goods business, with 135,000 employees

and a roster of some of the world's best-selling brands.

12 years ago, none of the company's most senior managers or directors was female.

Geraldine Huse was a solitary woman in a sea of grey suits.

This is Geraldine's team today. With an even mix of men and women,

it's a 50/50 balance replicated at every level.

Your story began when you noticed a mass exodus

of female highly-skilled talent leaving the business.

People in the business tended to think

they were leaving for family reasons, to have a baby

or to stay at home with the children.

Or, it's a pretty stressful environment here,

and there was a thought that maybe it's more suited to a male style than a female style.

P&G contacted women who had left to find out why they'd gone.

It turned out that they weren't at home with children after all.

And even I was surprised that 95% of them

had gone on to do another job.

So they hadn't left because of family circumstances,

they'd gone to do another job.

-So they actually, physically went and sought other employment.

-Yes.

They'd just resigned because they felt...

When we asked them why, they said they felt that their style

and their work-life balance would not work at Procter & Gamble.

The problem looked even more serious

when P&G analyzed the business results of its teams.

Teams that were all-male, like the laundry team,

or all-female like the cosmetics team

didn't perform as well as teams with a gender balance.

Mixed teams performed 5% better,

an advantage worth millions of pounds in sales.

Company bosses realised they had to take action.

In a business that thrives on consumer understanding,

in a business that thrives in really getting to know

habits and attitudes, usage patterns,

I think it just makes absolute sense that

leadership in the company represents the consumers that we are serving.

P&G made some fundamental changes in a bid

to halt the exodus of its women.

All staff were trained in how to appreciate

the difference between masculine and feminine styles of behaviour,

and it was made clear that staff could opt to work flexibly

and still climb the corporate ladder.

What interests me is from the commercial perspective,

how does the company cover that?

If we have reduced work schedules, sometimes we'll need,

instead of eight people in a team, we might need ten people

if there's lots of people on reduced work schedules.

And is that a cost to the business?

We don't believe it is a cost overall

because of the benefit of retaining the top talent that we have.

Is that you saying you don't believe there's a cost overall

or is that the accountants of the business

-saying there is a cost to this?

-It's a good question.

-Cos that's what interests me.

-Yes, it really is the total company,

right from the top, our CEO in the States.

And also, if you think about the ten years of training it takes

to get somebody to senior management level,

-that costs an awful lot of money.

-Oh, God, yeah.

So it actually costs us a lot more

if we're losing this fantastic talent than if we're retaining it.

Hilary's seen how much P&G benefited by retaining its women,

saving on recruitment costs and boosting sales.

Now she wants to find out

if the advantages of mixed teams can be replicated in other businesses.

She's called on Dr Judith Baxter,

one of the country's foremost experts in gender and linguistics in the workplace.

Today, Dr Baxter's conducting a new experiment

to investigate why mixed teams perform better,

and she's hoping to show why many women find it difficult

to succeed in a male-dominated environment.

The aim of the experiment today is to look at language,

the way that people speak and interact

and to ask whether it is perhaps one very important reason

why women are still failing to make it to the top.

Three teams - the first all men, the second all women,

and the third with an even gender mix,

have been told they're taking part in a competitive task.

They will be asked to do the same task,

to build a paper tower.

The teams have been told their towers will be judged on height and appearance,

and they need to be strong enough to support a glass.

Your time for planning this exercise begins now.

Strongest is probably like a tripod, but we haven't got very big paper.

Strongest way to do it is generally to roll it.

There was a clear leader

and that leader took the initiative from the start,

and actually came up with the right design.

If we put three pieces around, which would save us a bit of time.

We're seeing a fairly hierarchical organisation, typical of male teams.

Notice all four on the right-hand side of the table

are actually looking to Andrew for his approval.

It's like a house of cards, you can work up a triangle like a pyramid.

You can add these where there's just paper there, other cylinders...

There's an element of competitiveness now

-between Nigel and Andrew.

-What's going to happen with that though

is the pressure is in the centre, so they'll collapse in on each other.

Typical of male interaction here is the fact that they're now

competing over who has the best design.

It doesn't actually necessarily have to be progressively stable.

Rather than debate alternative ideas,

the men fall in behind Nigel as their new leader

and adopt his unstable design.

-Please start.

-Over to the women.

-Has anybody done this task before?

-I've got an idea, I've got an idea.

If you've got a better idea, I'm happy for you to contribute.

Interestingly in the girls' team, a leader does emerge straight away,

but what Agata does is she says,

"If you're happy to go along with this,"

which suggests that she's trying to invite other members of the team to share her idea.

Women very often use a rather more cautious type of language.

I call it double voice discourse. What it conveys to their colleagues

is that they are less confident about their viewpoints

and possibly less decisive.

Right now, Nicola chips in,

who's actually had to cut across what Agata was saying.

That was the only way that she could get her voice heard.

I've seen this done as well before, where you make it up like a pylon.

Nicola puts forward the best solution

but her team mates carry on brainstorming.

You've got a square base...

Agata and Sharena are talking over her

so in order for Nicola to be heard she has to continue talking.

So she has to make a judgement call -

is it more important that I get the right idea across

or is it more important that I feel involved, one of the team?

Women tend to be much more egalitarian in the way they communicate -

all of them want an equal say, all of them want to be included.

Right, OK.

Finally, it's the mixed team.

Immediately in this group there's a different atmosphere

from the men's group and the women's group.

There's a lot of laughter, jokes, almost flirtatious.

You can sense the opposite gender dynamic is kicking in here.

In terms of the platform, how are we building...

So we have the cylinders...

What you're seeing is a lack of competition.

It seems as if the best is being brought out

of both men and women in this exercise.

-Time for the build.

-You have 15 minutes.

Go, go, go, guys!

The mixed group keeps smiling.

The women's team continue to all pitch in with ideas.

The men keep issuing instructions.

The women's tower is structurally sound but rather short.

The men have gone for size

at the expense of stability.

The mixed team are clear winners.

It's just exactly what a team should do. Beautiful.

As well as showing the advantages of the gender-balanced team,

the experiment reveals why a woman may struggle

to make her mark in a male-dominated workplace.

By learning how men operate in a male team,

women operate in a female team,

we learn about what the norms of interaction are.

And that might help us to explain why women find it difficult

to go into a men's team when the norms of interaction,

the way that people engage with each other, is so very different.

Back at her London flat, Hilary is reflecting

on what she's learned about the business benefits of mixed teams,

and she's convinced that Procter & Gamble was right

to transform its male-dominated corporate culture.

I felt that they did recognise a problem.

They did find a solution and they actually made that solution stick

and I've no doubt that will go from strength to strength

because it's now engendered within their company's ethos and culture.

Having said that, they have 6,000 employees in the UK to play with.

They've also a lot of money.

Hilary is yet to be persuaded that the same kind of solution

could be made to work in Britain's small to medium-sized enterprises.

In SMEs, cost matters, human resource matters,

because you have to sweat your assets

and your assets isn't just your operating equipment,

it's your human resource.

Hilary suspects that for many SMEs,

the costs of boosting the number of female employees in key roles might

outweigh the benefits. This could be damaging women's career prospects.

She's going to talk to someone who runs

one of Britain's 4.5 million smaller companies to find out more.

Kathy Tilbury is MD of a Bournemouth-based coach company with 75 employees.

-Hi, Kathy.

-Hi, Hilary. Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you as well.

Would you like to come get on board the coach with us?

Most of Kathy's coach drivers are men,

but back at the office, her team is 30% women.

Do you think to small businesses, say, like your own business,

it's detrimental to employ females of childbearing age

who possibly will want children very soon?

I think you have to be very careful how you answer that.

I've just completed two years as President of the Chamber of Commerce in Dorset,

and I'm well aware of businesses that have to think twice

about recruiting women of childbearing age.

You don't have a choice because we could find ourselves

in employment tribunal just through refusing an interview

of someone who tells us that they're pregnant. So we have to.

We have a policy within our business of right person, right job.

but you have to think about the impact on the business,

not just financially but in the day-to-day operation

when you recruit people.

Kathy's right-hand woman, sales and marketing manager Louise,

is one of the 400,000 women taking maternity leave this year.

Kathy will be able to claim back 92% of Louise's maternity pay

but she's been totting up the other costs.

We've had to look at recruiting somebody,

so there's about a cost of about £1,000 in terms of the advert,

the interview processes.

There's then a week's induction and training,

so that's another £650.

There's obviously some additional office equipment

that we need to provide, that's in the region of another £1,000.

When the maternity leave finishes,

there's potentially 21 days holiday to take

so that all comes at a cost to the business.

I reckon our sales and marketing manager going off pregnant,

although we get 92% back, it's still going to have a hit

-of about eight to ten grand on my bottom line.

-Yeah.

Kathy's looking forward to her manager returning to work part-time

after her maternity leave, but she's not the only employer

who's frank about the impact of maternity rights.

As the former boss of Marks & Spencer,

Sir Stuart Rose used to be in charge of 76,000 employees,

more than half of them women.

It was just as much of a problem for me

when I was running a big business

for somebody in a key role to go off on maternity leave

as it is for somebody in a smaller business although I accept

that it could be quite mission critical in a small business,

where in a big business it's just a damned nuisance.

Let's not shilly shally about, I know small businesses

who therefore in their recruitment process would shy away

from employing somebody who might get pregnant.

The issue of maternity leave is impacting greatly

on our female talent,

but it's also impacting greatly on our commercial world.

You can't get away from the fact that a couple of pregnancies

in a small business could bring about its demise.

Hilary knows that illegal discrimination is an issue,

but in her experience, there's another important factor

contributing to the lack of women in jobs at top level.

Not enough are coming forward to apply for those roles in the first place.

Throughout her own career, Hilary has never found ads

for high-flying jobs a daunting prospect.

"A critical and high-profile role," I think I'm perfect for that.

"A key member of the global finance team."

Well, really, I'd want to run the finance team anyway.

"With experience of reporting to external shareholders."

I could do that. "The role will lead the business

"through a period of expansion and transformation

"while ensuring operational excellence." I could do that.

"The role also includes building a highly capable and motivated team."

Fine. There's nothing in there that would prevent me, as a woman,

applying for that role.

But Hilary's confidence is far from typical.

Psychologist Binna Kandola has analysed the ways

in which job ads may be putting a lot of women off

before they've even got a foot in the door.

There's an advertisement here, looking for non-executive members

of the board. They're looking for exceptional individuals.

Now, language like that is more likely to attract a man

and is more likely to put off a woman.

A woman is likely to be thinking, "Am I genuinely exceptional?

"I know I'm good, I might even be very good, but exceptional?

"Oh, I'm not so sure."

So that's more likely to put a female off.

It talks about somebody who has gravitas

to influence board members.

Now, if you ask people if gravitas is a male word,

a female word or a neutral word, a lot of people will say neutral

and a lot of people also will say male. It conjures up a man.

But nobody will ever say it only conjures up a woman.

So a word like that is not only communicating to the candidates,

unfortunately it's also communicating something

to the people who are going to be doing the selection.

It's going to be biasing them towards a male candidate.

I can't for the life of me comprehend why women

will be deterred from applying

for employment positions, top senior roles,

because of a word in an advertisement.

That just goes beyond my comprehension.

Binna's invited a recruitment agency head, Sue Rees,

and three of the professional women on her books,

to look at a pair of ads for a chief financial officer role

and decide which one they think they'd be most likely to succeed in.

The experiment here is presenting the same job in two different ways.

One using very stereotypically male language,

the other one avoiding

some of the particularly male biased language.

Orange Star Corporation's role is a demanding one,

requiring relentless focus.

It's looking for an outstanding leader.

Purple Star wants someone who can make a significant contribution

and engage with people at all levels.

The Purple Star was much about more creating culture,

and about you being able to make a significant contribution.

That is what I would look for when going for a job.

I think I prefer the Purple Star Corporation.

It just seems to me as though

it would fit into my life more than the Orange Star.

Well, I think they're both interesting roles.

They're both in a fast-moving, growing business,

which is something I'm really keen to work in.

But I am very career focused, so I would be looking at the role

that would be the most demanding

and that will further my career the most.

The ad with softer language appeals to all three candidates.

Only the youngest thinks she'd be suitable

for the more masculine sounding job.

And as well as limiting the pool of candidates,

the wording could affect recruiters too.

The language starts to orient us towards what we're looking for.

This type of language

is stereotypically more associated with a man,

and selectors will be therefore more inclined to select a man

and less likely to see those qualities in any female candidates.

And it's not just unconscious bias in the choice of words

that can reduce the pool of applicants.

Kate Grussing is a professional head-hunter

who specialises in identifying female candidates for senior jobs.

She's worked with companies including John Lewis,

Lloyds TSB and IBM.

Kate frequently sees women eliminating themselves

from the recruitment process.

When we approach a woman about a job,

she will often tell me why she thinks

she's not suitable for job.

what the two out of 25 bullet points are

that she hasn't been able to demonstrate in her background.

Men will never point out the reasons why they're not suitable for a job.

They will say why they are a perfect fit

on the 15 of the 25 bullet points in that job description.

I think women are often every bit as ambitious, they just don't wear it

on their sleeve the way their male peers will.

Addressing the issue of confidence will be one of Hilary's priorities

when she sets out to find a range of solutions

that can help more women prosper in business.

For now, having looked at what prevents women

from getting into key roles, Hilary wants to get to grips

with what's stopping them from staying in their jobs

and rising through the ranks.

OK, all right. You take care. Bye-bye.

From her own experience,

she has no doubt that the biggest challenge of all is motherhood.

Mevlit.

Tiny, tiny baby.

He was probably about two weeks there

It was probably a week after that

when I had to return to work.

It was kind of spelled out to me

that if I didn't get back out into work quickly,

there wouldn't be a job there for me.

Every morning, Hilary drove 70 miles

to take Mevlit to be looked after by his grandparents,

before heading in to London for a full day's work.

The sacrifice is not seeing your child's first step,

not hearing his first word,

not being there when he's poorly,

because you've got to be at work or at the other end of the country.

After I'd split with Mev's father,

I didn't even go out with another man for 12 years.

All I did was work, take care of him and keep a home.

In Britain today, two thirds of mothers work at least part-time.

But many find the challenge of juggling work and family commitments

affects their confidence and their career progression.

Paula Leach has several hours of planning and organizing to do

each morning, before she's even left the house.

Husband Martin is nearly always first to set off.

When you're both working in professional jobs...

He works five days a week,

and actually has an hour and a quarter commute.

So it makes it tough.

Do you want to have a look at this, Natasha?

I saw it in your school bag.

On the side here, this time capsule. Can you tell me about it?

-We need to write some things that we all draw.

-Things you'd put in it?

What have you been told about it?

We talked about ideas.

It's all the practicalities of the washing

and sorting all that out, but it's also all the organizing

of the children's lives and what's happening.

Like this time capsule thing, or what's happening at school.

Have they got a dress-up day or a party?

All of that I do.

You're taking Natasha's bag? That's kind of you.

Paula works part-time managing Learning and Development

at Ford in Essex.

We're doing OK for time.

Normally I would try and leave the house by eight.

Before I had children, I was never late for anything.

Since I've had children, sometimes I really feel I'm up against it

in terms of trying to fit everything in and then make it

to meetings and not let people down.

After her first daughter Natasha was born,

Paula returned to work four days a week

in a demanding operational role.

It was a tough time for her.

I remember leaving the office

and going to do the pick-up from nursery

and I'd be the first one to leave the office.

I think as the manager of the department,

you feel that you shouldn't be

the first one leaving the office.

It didn't matter that then maybe I might work

three hours later on that evening

to kind of catch up on everything that was going on.

I still felt that.

Paula's worked at Ford since she graduated.

She hadn't expected it to be so difficult for her

to reconcile her responsibilities at work and at home.

I would never have believed that

I would have a dip in confidence.

There's that whole other job that you're learning to do,

being mum, and sometimes you sit in a meeting

and you sit there thinking, "Gosh, should I be here?"

I don't think that now, but I have felt like that.

After having her second daughter,

Paula decided something would have to give.

I just thought I've got a choice point here

about what I do with my life.

But work's important to me and I've worked so hard

to get to where I am, it would be a shame

to get all of that experience behind you and then to kind of step out.

Paula decided to cut down to three and a half days a week

and she moved into a role

in which she would be in control of her own schedule.

She's much happier with her work-life balance,

but the rapid progression she was making up the career ladder

before having children, has slowed down, at least for now.

You never know what the situation would be if you hadn't had children.

Having said that, I haven't particularly progressed,

I would say, through the organization.

You know, I'm a mum

and I want to be around.

Paula's found an arrangement which suits her

and her long-term employer.

But for many, achieving a satisfying work-life balance

means they compromise on seniority and pay.

More than four in ten mothers with degrees

say they have taken a job for which they're overqualified in order

to secure a part-time working arrangement.

When Hilary starts to look for solutions,

the thorny issues faced by working parents will be crucial.

But she'll also be thinking about the 2.2 million women

who are full time mums.

I would like to go out

and meet a woman who has made that choice to stay at home

and care for those children instead of returning to work.

Clare Hill certainly never planned

on being a stay at home parent.

She gave up the job she loved after having her first son.

Six years later, she's still at home

in Derby with her two boys.

Show me your poorly hand?

Clare used to be a trainer and assessor of nursery managers

before she choose to step away from her flourishing career.

Look, he's loving it! You little monkey.

Was it kind of a financial decision

or was it a work-life balance or a family-life balance decision?

It was a good mix, actually.

Initially, it was an emotional one,

I just kind of decided it wasn't a good time for me to go back.

I wanted to spend more time with my son.

Another part of it was the financial side,

just due to the fact I had to pay

a good £185 a week on childcare fees.

£185 a week?

Yes, which meant a big chunk of my wages would go

straight out on the childcare fees,

so I had to weigh up

what I was going to do and the career had to go.

The UK's childcare costs

are among the highest in the world,

with fees for a two-year-old in daycare

costing a third of the average net

income of two working parents.

I do love my life, but I do also miss going to work

and having my own income to support the family.

I'm looking at possibly setting up my own little business

where I can fit into time around the children.

Do you see yourself in the future

getting back on the corporate ladder?

I'm itching to go back.

It's just the whole childcare fee thing versus your wages.

It just doesn't add up.

You're going to say bye-bye to me? Can I have a kiss?

Hilary is surer than ever that motherhood is the biggest challenge

preventing many women from progressing in business.

She's seen how the dilemmas posed by maternity leave, childcare,

and part-time work create a clash of emotional, financial

and practical factors for women and for business.

This is a really big contributor to women leaving the workplace

and disappearing from the pyramid

that we saw at the University College of London.

Females go into the commercial world

and it takes them several years to be recognized as a shining star.

They get to 28 and all of a sudden, they've got somebody saying

"Ooh, board material here. Real senior management.

"She can really do this."

What then happens, is the biological clock starts to tick

and it's a sad fact of life that she then leaves to have a child

and all too often that female talent, that female skill set,

that shining star is just written off.

Convinced that balancing motherhood and work

is critical for women and their employers,

Hilary's off to see the boss of a large company

with plenty of women in management and on the factory floor,

but only one woman on the board of six directors.

McBride is Europe's biggest manufacturer of retailers' own-brand

household and personal care products.

2.5 billion dishwasher tablets and 100 million bottles of bleach

pour out of its factories each year,

to be purchased mostly by women.

CEO Chris Bull is confident it's merely a matter of time

until he has more women in his top team.

Hilary believes things are more complicated.

In your opinion, are there enough women

with the right skill sets and experience

-to fulfil these top roles?

-Not today, no.

I think that's a real issue

in terms of the availability today.

I think the pipeline is filling up, and therefore I think, over time,

the situation's going to get much better.

But today, there's certainly a scarcity.

Is it not a case of you can take a horse to water,

but you can't make it drink?

Could it not be a case of, you know, we need to women

to have children anyway to safeguard our future generation,

therefore a company's got to find

a way around managing that?

I think companies certainly need

to find their way around managing career breaks. Yes, absolutely.

But equally, somebody still has to care for the home

and care for the child.

Yes, or share the caring as well.

That can be a better route, I think.

How can the role be shared, Chris?

How would it appear when you're burning the midnight oil,

as we've all done round the board table,

trying to find a solution to a problem,

discuss a new product strategy,

what's the profitability of that,

and all of a sudden Chris jumps up

"I've got to go, lads. It's parents' evening."

You're right. That's a real challenge.

But it's not about being completely black and white.

If you create a more kind of rounded approach

that both males and females

have a responsibility for the family, just as I have...

But you would not leave your board room meeting

to go to a parents' evening,

because you would expect your wife to do that.

I would plan my boardroom meeting round the parents' meeting.

I still go to parents' meetings, I just plan ahead.

There's not a crisis every day in business.

No, no. That is agreed, there isn't.

But I still think that you've got probably 99%

of what you need at home

to enable you to do your job.

The encounter has spurred Hilary on to dig deeper into the issues.

I was pretty robust with Chris Bull,

but actually I've got a similar problem to face

with my own business.

Now Hilary's seen some of the obstacles

holding women back in large and small companies,

she's decided it's time to find out

whether her own business is making the most of female talent.

Hilary's called in a management consultant

who specialises in gender diversity.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox spends most of her time

advising global companies like Nestle, Nissan and Shell

on the business benefits of increasing diversity.

Hilary's asked us to do a gender audit of her company,

so we'll take a look at qualitatively and quantitavely

what kind of culture and company she's created,

how gender balanced it is at every level.

Does she have a gender balanced team around her

or is she a queen bee?

Is she ruling the roost in a male dominated industry

using her erotic capital to make a difference?

It's safe to say this is the first time

anyone's come to the Pall-Ex transhipment hub

to discuss erotic capital.

-Hello.

-Hi, Avivah. it's Hilary Devey.

Have you just arrived at Pall-Ex?

I have indeed and I've just been admiring your lovely entrance.

Gorgeous red walls.

You've got the run of the place,

so please talk to as many people as you wish.

I'm looking forward to hearing what they all have to say

and what female leadership does.

I can't wait. Talk to you later, bye-bye.

The gender audit starts in the warehouse,

where Operations Director Fraser McNeill

oversees 9,000 pallets of freight on the move each day.

Transport's something that's in your blood.

You either like it or you don't and you find out very quickly.

It's a tough industry. You've got to be prepared

to put some self sacrifice in there.

Most of the staff here are driving around and moving pallets all day.

what's the gender balance on all these drivers?

The gender balance in the company is I think three to one.

-The gender balance out here is very, very low.

-Yeah?

-No ladies driving these things?

-Very blue collar.

There's no ladies driving forklifts. We do have some lady truck drivers.

So you don't see any need or advantage

to having more gender balance in a work environment like this?

Would that be something you would ever think of as useful?

I think in terms of forklift drivers, I don't suppose it matters

which gender, which race, which colour.

A good forklift driver's a good forklift driver.

They're like gold dust. We need them here.

Turning to the upper echelons of the company,

next to be grilled is Hilary's managing director, Adrian Russell.

Did you see any advantage to her being a woman in this sector?

-Absolutely.

-Yeah.

-Absolutely.

She can get away with things

-because she's a woman...

-Yeah.

-..that a man couldn't.

Adrian reports that the warehouse staff is 98% male,

management is almost 50/50 male-to-female.

At top level, Hilary is the sole woman on the board of ten directors.

-A pretty male-dominated leadership team.

-Yeah.

-Why, do you think?

I think it's about presentation, in as much as...

people who present themselves for interview.

Do you see any business reason to want to know the gender balance

of these teams?

I'm interested in anything that could improve the performance of this business,

-it's as simple as that.

-OK.

Very interesting. Obviously somebody who's never thought about this topic

for a day in his entire career. That's pretty typical of what we find of many male leaders

when you first introduce the topic.

Unusual in that he also admits that Hilary's sex was a huge competitive advantage

in this business.

Next, Avivah is going to get the low-down on gender

in the marketing department, which is run by a woman,

Hilary's protegee, Holly.

Everything's quite new and exciting for this year,

so everything's in development stage. This is our latest retail campaign.

We specifically decided to target the retail industry.

Do you have any images of what your competition looks like in their advertising?

-These are two of our competitors.

-Everybody's pictured trucks!

Yeah, that is something, as you can see from our campaign, that we're starting

-to move away from.

-Absolutely. It's a whole new look.

Retail's a whole different industry.

They're not interested to see a picture of a truck.

-So has gender ever entered the conversation?

-It hasn't, no.

-No.

-Cos it's not something we actually have considered.

The marketing team may not have designed their new campaign

with women in mind, but Avivah's impressed by how it could appeal

to women as well as men.

It's always interesting to see how gender bilingual marketing can be,

what kind of vocabulary and imagery does it bring in, does it speak to both men and women?

Is Pall-Ex doing that because it's run by a woman? Well, one can ask the question.

Next to be audited is Helen, in Human Resources.

Any desire or attempt to attract more women,

-any thinking on that?

-We did recruit a female, a forklift truck driver.

-But she left.

-What did she say when she left?

-It was too crazy for her?

-Yeah, it was. She just couldn't handle

the pace of moving the pallets and everything like that.

So it's not for want of trying.

but they're just not out there. Even when you go to agencies

and you ask them to look at their books,

it's all male on their books, so, you know, it's very difficult.

Do you feel any...

..particular push from the CEO to gender balance

-or not gender balance?

-Um, no. No.

-No? OK.

-So no particular focus on the issue?

-No.

-Yeah.

The audit process has started to move the issue up the agenda.

It's has brought it home, I think, to do a bit of navel gazing.

You know, in terms of, what do we do? What are our attitudes?

We think we've got a good positive approach to it,

but it's more unconscious than conscious here.

I don't think we think, "Oh, we'll get a woman or get a man."

It's the best person for the job.

Having completed the gender audit,

Avivah is wondering how Hilary will respond to her findings.

Really the options today were,

is Hilary Devey a fantastic authentic role model leader

for other women?

Or is she what we know as a queen bee,

kind of the sole woman who loves to keep power

in a male-dominated environment?

For Hilary, hearing the results of the audit and taking a new look

at the prospects of women inside her own company

will conclude her investigation of the problems holding women back in business.

If I look at your, you know, your pyramid of recruitment,

the leadership team is male-dominated, you're at the top.

And then a much more gender-balanced middle management group.

And then you go down to the warehouse, and that's 98% men.

And that's what a lot of companies look like today.

I think because there, particularly in my own business,

is a threat for women,

in we have probably 700 articulated vehicles in and out

in a 24-hour period from all over the continent, and they're all male.

And I think to put a female manager or director on that work floor

-is a risk.

-In a lot of blue-collar environments,

they do find that gender balance on shop floors

reduces absenteeism, alcoholism.

Listen, I would love to have a 50-50 gender balance there, there,

there and there. I would love it.

But you cannot find them.

Then it's a question of how much do you want it

and how consistently do you try? We were looking, for example,

at some of the recruitment advertising in your company and for some of the jobs

that we saw, one of the great competitive advantages

-you would have in recruiting women...

-Is that I'm a female.

..is that you're a company led by a woman,

and that wasn't mentioned in the ads, so that was my last point,

that you as a leader, you have this very feminine side,

you use it, you play it up, it's been a huge advantage.

And then you have this very masculine side that you use

whenever you feel like it, to slug them in the face

and take them aback, which is, as we heard, you know,

makes a lot of them knock-kneed

-as they're going up to your office.

-I didn't know that.

Don't underestimate, it sounds to me in your sector, what your gender

-has actually given to your company.

-I mean, I know conclusively

but for females, we definitely would not have the marketing that we have,

we would not have the international portfolio that we have.

-So they've brought huge benefit...

-But for females, you would not have

the entire business idea of your company that you have, so...

Yeah. SHE LAUGHS

So you would conclude, I think,

that gender is actually a lever

-to achieving business goals. That's it?

-Yes.

The results of the audit have struck Hilary deeply.

She's starting to acknowledge how much her business success

depends on having a gender mix.

It was like a bolt of lightning after meeting with Avivah,

because I then started to look at the profit-per-department,

and what I actually discovered is that the most profitable department that we have

has got a gender balance of 50:50.

Mixed gender departments do produce more profit,

it is absolutely fact.

And although she used to think that it was down to individuals to create their own opportunities,

-now she's having a change of heart.

-When I started on this journey,

I tended to think that if women really wanted it,

why can't they go out and get it? Because I did.

Hilary's going to have to find solutions to some of

the problems she's encountered - the impact of maternity leave on women and employers,

the challenge of juggling motherhood and work,

and bias in the recruitment process.

And she's pledged to make changes at her own company,

for the good of the business and the women in it.

There's no point me preaching unless I start redressing the balance

in my own business, and that's what I intend to do.

Next time, Hilary investigates some radical measures

to get more women into business.

If the quota legislation was not about feminism, what was it about?

She asks what men can do to help keep women's careers on track.

Once you're up in five, six, seven, eight months,

you're the one in charge at home, and you get to make the decisions.

And Hilary tackles the challenge inside her own company.

The more I think about it, the better it'll be,

because it's the perfect job for a woman.

What are your chances of reaching the top of the career ladder?

Compare your profile against other boardroom hopefuls

with the Open University's interactive challenge.

Go to bbc.co.uk/womenatthetop

and follow the links to the Open University.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd